'To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.'1

Yet, later on in the same chapter of his book, he explained how he believed it evolved anyway and that the absurdity was illusory. Had Darwin had the knowledge about the eye and its associated systems that man has today (which is a great deal more than what it was in his time), he may have given up his naturalistic theory on the origin of living things.

One fascinating discovery in the study of modern ophthalmology (eye science) is that, aside from what Darwin was able to observe, there are three almost imperceptibly tiny eye movements. These three, referred to as tremors, drifts and saccadesí, are caused by minute contractions in the six muscles attached to the outside of each of your eyes. Every fraction of a second they very slightly shift the position of your eyeball, automatically, without conscious effort on your part, making sight as you know it possible.

Tremors are the tiniest and probably the most intriguing of these movements, continuously and rapidly wobble your eyeball about its center in a circular fashion. They cause the cornea and retina (front and back) of your eyes to move in circles with incredibly minute diameters of approximately 1/1000 (.001) of a millimeter, or .00004 inch.

This size is about 70 times smaller than the thickness of a piece of paper. Carefully look at a piece of paper, edge on, then try to imagine 70 circles of the same diameter (O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O) touching and placed in a row straight across the thickness of the paper. If you can do that, you will have a feel for the minuscule nature of the tremors along with some appreciation for the Creator who has demonstrated His capacity for designing such a thing.

Amazing Tremors

An even more amazing characteristic of tremors is that the seemingly
tireless muscles that produce them wobble your eye 30 to 70 times each second. If sound
were involved, that would be fast enough to produce a low-pitched hum. Amazingly, on
average, each of your eyes completes one million of these tiny circular motions in 5 1/2
hours. The number of tremors taking place in a lifetime is astronomical.

Even though tremors are not large enough to be visible without great
magnification, you could not see properly without them.

Even though tremors are not large enough to be visible without great magnification, you could not see properly without them.

For example, consider what would happen if these and all other eye
movements stopped while you were staring at someone's face. The light-sensing cells in
your retina would quickly 'stabilize', and cease to send updated information to your
brain, causing the image you perceive to fade into a uniform gray within seconds. If
the person you were staring at smiled, their mouth, and only their mouth, would
momentarily reappear out of a visual field of nothingness!

(This has been done in the laboratory,2 and was said to have looked
like the smile of the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland.)

The reappearance of only part of the face would happen because only
the mouth moved, causing a momentary change in that part of the picture which the retina
was seeing at the time.

Thus, continued change in the light projected on each retinal cell in
your eyes is crucial for constant vision. Hence the need for tremors that God has made
to supply the retina with a slightly shifting picture many times each second. Without
the tremors, which are probably the most critical muscular phenomenon for normal vision,
you would have to be constantly looking about or continuously altering the light on a
subject to see anything for longer than a few seconds at a time.

During drift movements, the eye drifts relatively slowly and smoothly
off the target where you are looking until it reaches an angle equal to about 12 times
the size of a tremor. At this time the eye automatically jerks, via a 'saccade', back
to its original position. Saccades, which happen up to several times a second, are very
quick, jerk-type movements that are used to correct for whatever drifts are occurring.

Eyes on the Move

An interesting way to observe the effect that drifts, along with associated saccades,
have on your visual system is to carefully study the type of graphic shown here. This
experiment will show you that your eyes are indeed moving all the time, even when you
think that they are not.

Look intently at the center of this
graphic. You should see a slight 'shimmering, psychedelic effect'
that seems to jump about no matter how hard you work at holding your eyes still.
This phenomenon can be enhanced if, while you stare at the figure, you stand
at arm's length, then twist or turn your body. Each time a random drift or small
saccade takes place, the new picture your retina sees appears to interplay or
interfere with a lingering 'after image' of what was seen a fraction of a second
earlier. That is what causes the appearance of a shifting motion within the
graphic. In this experiment, the tremors are too small and too fast to have a noticeable effect.

Large saccades are employed in scanning motions like reading. As you
read this article, you may think your vision is smoothly scanning, letter by letter, or
word by word, but this is not so. Instead, the precise alignment of your two eyes is
synchronously hopping along, via those 'jerk-back' saccades, following each line. During
the moment a saccade is occurring, your vision is blurred, so between the hops are
momentary stops which give the eye-brain system time to decipher the printed letters
into meaningful phrases.

Think of how challenging it would be for a human to create the genetic
code needed to produce the fine-tuned nervous system that makes precise, coordinated
muscular movements (like tremors, drifts and saccades) possible. When Darwin made his
assumptions about the origin of organs, he had nothing like the knowledge we have today.
Had he been aware of the need for the tiny precision humming. Hopping eyeball motions
that are going on all the time while we are awake, he may have abandoned his theory of
evolution as foolish and impracticable speculation.

There is indeed abundant evidence of the Creator's handiwork in all
we see around us, and what we see with.

Tom Wagner is a science teacher in Indiana, USA. He is a keen photographer, whose articles and photographs appear frequently in Creation magazine.

A fascinating discovery since Darwin's time is three broad classes of almost
imperceptible eye movements, drifts, tremors and saccades. To demonstrate that your eyes
are always on the move, even when you think they are not, study the graphic located in
the article above. An 'afterimage' is superimposed on the image you see, giving a
twinkling effect that seems to be moving. Try keeping your eye steady: the twinkling
effect continues.